STOCKTON — Workers were busy setting up fencing around two downtown buildings and a parking lot Monday morning, a prelude to the start of construction on an affordable-housing development touted as an early step toward revitalization of the city’s core.

The project will involve renovation of the 124-year-old Cal Weber Building and the adjoining 89-year-old McKeegan Building at California Street and Weber Avenue.

There also will be new construction in the vacant lot formerly occupied by the seedy Land Hotel, which was demolished in 2012. Existing ground-floor retail businesses in the buildings will remain open while the year-long construction project is in progress.

In a much earlier time, the McKeegan building was home to Dreamland Hall, a dance hall that later became Treanan Ballroom. In the late 1800s, the Cal Weber building was occupied by the Columbus Buggy Company and, for a time, the YMCA.

Plans call for Cal Weber 40 to have 28 apartments with two bedrooms and one bathroom, and 12 more with three bedrooms and two baths.

A second affordable-housing and retail project, dubbed Grand View Village, could break ground a year from now if all goes according to the developers’ plans. Grand View is to be located at Hunter and San Joaquin streets and Miner Avenue.

A massive 15-block housing and commercial project for east-central Stockton, announced March 22, will take significantly longer to unfold, developer Ten Space Inc. says.